It’s the latter that banks should be most worried about: it’s emboldened self-fulfillment that junior bankers are most likely to find lacking when they’re working 80 hours a week on pitchbooks and financial models. Emboldened self-fulfillment is also a more compelling sell than the conservatism and safety of finance jobs. Of course, the peddlers of ESF don’t refer to it in those actual terms – they’re more cunning than that. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?,” Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg reportedly asked a group of students at Harvard University last year. At least two promptly ditched their finance and management consulting job offers. Sarah Pierson, 22, and Alexa Buckley, 23, now run their own fashion business instead. “It felt like a giant leap of faith,” they told the Wall Street Journal, but Sandberg’s speech ‘resonated’ and they were too ‘passionate’ to let the fashion opportunity go.

Separately, Reuters says there are some ‘tensions’ at Barclays. The European and US sides of the investment banking business reportedly don’t get on too well (still). The US makes a lot more money than Europe and would like to have a lot more power. Reuters points out that Barclays has already cut 8,000 people – one third of its investment banking employees in the past two years. If there are more cuts, guess where they’ll fall…

Meanwhile:

Last year, Google added an average of 2,435 employees per quarter. That’s all coming to an end. (WSJ)

J.P. Morgan’s banking analysts think equities revenues could fall 22% in the second half of the year if China’s stock market gyrations continue. (Swiss Info)

Deutsche Bank just hired Bryan North-Clauss from Morgan Stanley as head of US rates sales. (WSJ)